Manufacturing a part may involve a number of various stages. Each stage may involve certain aspects of manufacturing. For example, in the case of manufacturing a part, such as a steel wheel for an automobile, a first stage may involve an engineer designing a wheel to meet a customer's needs. Once designed by the engineer, the design of the wheel is utilized to make a pattern to form a mold of the wheel. Subsequently, steel is poured into the mold to cast the wheel, and the wheel casting is cleaned and inspected for quality. In order to complete the wheel for delivery to the customer, features, such as lugholes, decorative patterns, polishing, and the like, may be machined into the wheel.
Additionally, below each stage described above various additional stages may also be present. For example, in designing the wheel, the engineer may design a hub, spokes, and so forth of for the wheel. Making the pattern may involve various aspects, such as making a core box for particular features in the casting, checking the availability of materials, and selecting a particular vendor. For more complex parts, such as entire automobiles, the stages become more complex and numerous.
An important aspect of manufacturing is coordinating and scheduling (i.e., project scheduling) all of the various stages. Project scheduling the various stages provides proper completion of the various stages at prescribed times and ensures that the part is manufactured in a timely manner to the satisfaction of the customer. However, the project scheduling of all of the various stages may increase in complexity and difficulty based at least upon the complexity of the design because a highly complex design may require numerous and complicated stages to manufacture.
Accordingly, often times, an initial variable considered in determining a project schedule for manufacturing a particular part involves an engineer determining a time required to completely design the particular part with its predetermined complexity and specifications. Determining this initial variable, often times, involves gathering a project team, including the engineer(s) responsible for designing the part, and the engineer(s) providing the required time based at least upon their experience.
The time based at least upon experience of the engineers may only be an estimate because as the part is designed, the engineer may make numerous modifications, and the methodology of the design may be modified (i.e., instead of a flat surface, a curved surface and so forth). Furthermore, the engineer may design complex parts utilizing computer aided design (CAD) programs because CAD programs allow a user to design various parts in “virtual” space before the parts ever reach a manufacturing stage. As CAD programs have become more powerful, parts modeled in “virtual” space (i.e., CAD models) have become more true to life. In the example of the wheel, the engineer may design each component of the wheel (i.e., the hub, spokes, and so forth of for the wheel) as separate CAD models and assemble the CAD models for the completed wheel. Utilizing CAD programs allows the engineer to easily make various modifications during the design process.
Because the project scheduling is based at least upon the complexity of the part thereby affecting the time required to design the part, modifications in the estimated time may detrimentally affect the subsequent stages of the manufacturing process. However, the estimated time for the design is commonly used to initiate the project scheduling. The project scheduling may then be incorporated into any project scheduling software, such as, Microsoft® Project, by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.